Now That You Kissed Me
by Elle D'Elajoie
Summary: After the locker room scene in "Never Been Kissed", Kurt decides to attempt to end the bullying in a unique way. Only Dave and Kurt know about the kiss and they keep it that way.


The landline rang. _Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring._ Dave looked up and considered ignoring it, but went ahead and answered.

"Hello?"

"David, this is Kurt. Don't hang up. I need to talk to you."

"I don't want to talk to you."

"I understand, but I NEED to talk to you."

"Fine. Park behind the grocery store. Dress like you did when you dated Brittany. Walk to my house. Be here in 30 minutes. My dad went to Columbus and won't be back until late."

"Okay."

Thirty minutes later on the dot, Dave heard knocking. _Knock, knock._ And again _. Knock, knock._ He considered not answering the door, but he finally went and reluctantly opened the door.

"Come on inside."

"Thanks."

Kurt stepped in. David shut the door quickly.

"Can we sit in there?" Kurt pointed towards a room that looked like formal living room.

"Sure."

Kurt slipped his shoes off, removed his hat, and followed David into the living room. He sat in an armchair across from David, who plopped down on the couch.

"I need to show you something."

"Okay."

Kurt turned his back to David, unbuttoned his plaid shirt, and slid it down his shoulders, but didn't remove it.

"Do you see my back? That bruising? It's from the locker slams. Obviously, you did not cause all of them. But the darkest ones – those are all from you. I have them on my hips too."

"Oh, God."

He pulled the shirt back up around his shoulders, rebuttoned it, and turned to face David.

"I know you play contact sports and knock people around, but those people are wearing protective gear. I just have my skin, and as you can clearly see, it's not holding up to the beating you're giving it by knocking and shoving me into lockers. I have a hard time sitting in class because I am in so much pain sometimes."

"I didn't realize..."

"When you knocked my phone out of my hands today, my phone screen was shattered. I'll have to dip into the money I've been saving for college to pay for the third new phone this school year. I'm not made of money David. I work at my dad's garage. I pay for my own stuff. He's still paying off the loan he had to take out to have our roof replaced after our lawn furniture was nailed to it. I don't know if you were part of that, but do you know how much a new roof costs?"

"That was the football team. I only played hockey last year. I'm sure it cost a lot."

"Try between 5 and 10 thousand dollars. I didn't hear the final total. And now we have all of the medical bills from when dad was in a coma in the hospital. I'm pretty sure one of my ribs is cracked from one of the locker shoves last week when my locker was open at the time and my side hit the open edge, but I can't be certain because I can't go to the doctor. Think about it. If I try to get medical care, some doctor is probably going to call CPS on my dad. I look like an abused teen. I can't do that. My dad doesn't even know about the physical bullying."

David looked down at the floor.

"Until today, I thought you just hated me, but now I'm not sure that's the reason."

Kurt looked down at his hands and slapped them on his thighs resolutely. "I lied this afternoon in the locker room."

"What do you mean?"

"I like jocks. You were my first crush back in 7th grade."

"What?"

"It's true. While I was viewing puberty from far, far away, you had already met it head on. I thought you were cute."

"Cute?"

"Oh, come on, we were 12."

"I'm not doing this."

"I swear nothing you say will leave this room."

"Fine. I thought you were cute too."

David blushed.

Kurt laughed.

"I'm sorry about the bruises. I mean of course I figured it didn't feel great, but I didn't know I was hurting you like that."

"I accept your apology, but it has to stop. You can't keep hurting me."

"I know, but I don't know how to stop. If I stop, everyone will notice."

"We'll deal with that later. I'm guessing by the way you've been acting that you've never told anyone and maybe not even allowed yourself to think about it. Do you hate yourself for being gay?"

"My mom and her whole church says that it's a sin and they all hate gays. They support this place where you can supposedly pray the gay away. If she finds out I'm ... well, I'd end up at that place."

"You know they're wrong, don't you?"

"Maybe. Even if she is, how can I stand up to my mom? I'm 17. She could make me go."

"Wow. That's really a tough place to be. I'd be scared too."

Kurt sat thinking. "I went to Westerville a couple of days ago to Dalton Academy."

"Why?"

"That's not important. What I found out when I was there is that Dalton has a strict no bullying policy. I can imagine that if my dad ever finds out about how badly I'm being bullied that I'll end up someplace like that. Not that it's a bad school. I'm sure it's great. It was really fancy. But it's over an hour and half from here and it's a boarding school. You're afraid of being found out and being sent to a brainwashing camp. I'm afraid of my dad finding out and being sent away and costing him even more money that we don't have to cover the tuition at a fancy school."

Dave looked toward the window.

"So tell me something I don't know about you."

"I know exactly what a rendering plant is. I'm not stupid."

"I know. I've known that since way back. You were in Algebra in 7th grade."

"How did you know? Never mind."

"You act stupid to fit in."

"Yeah."

"What's your weakest subject?"

"French."

Kurt sat quietly for a few minutes. "Maybe we can solve both of our school problems."

"How?"

"The jocks will believe most anything. Most of them aren't the brightest."

"Hey!"

"Anyway. I propose that we pretend that we've been forced to spend time together. You tell the other jocks that you've been threatened with expulsion and you can't risk that on your permanent record. The other option you were given was to attend French tutoring with me and to stop bullying me. That way, it will look like you've been forced to be nice to me."

"Would you actually help me with French after everything I've done to you?"

"You already apologized. I forgive you."

"I don't deserve it."

"That's the thing about forgiveness. You can't earn it. It's not a reward. It's a gift. You can accept it or not."

Dave looked at him and smiled sadly.

Kurt paused, thinking intently. He pulled his feet up into the chair and sat criss-cross. "How about this? You tell Azimio and the others that someone dropped off photos of you bullying me to Figgins office. You got called in. No one knows who took the photos, but Figgins gave you a final warning. You have to attend French tutoring with me and stop bullying me or face expulsion. One more incident and you get expelled. You chose the tutoring because you didn't want your dad to find out and you want it to stay that way. Maybe even play up the photos part of it. Tell Azimio that if he doesn't watch himself that whoever took the pictures might start photographing him and the others too."

"Interesting idea."

"Practically everyone has a phone with a camera on it. It's the perfect cover. No one will be able to be sure whether someone is taking pictures or not. I saw Azimio's mom at Mercedes' church when I went with her a few weeks ago. I bet she has no idea her son is a bully and I bet he does not want her to find out."

"Well, that's true. Mrs. Adams is a force to be reckoned with."

"I can imagine."

"I'll tell the Gleeks the same story. That you have to attend tutoring with me and that you can't bully anyone anymore or you get expelled and you can't risk expulsion. Hockey or football scholarships are lost over expulsions. I'm sure you know that. Even if you weren't planning on pursuing a hockey or football scholarship, no one has to know that. The fear of losing a scholarship is enough to make people believe that you quit bullying people."

Dave nodded in agreement.

"So, do we have a deal? Our story will be that photographs of you bullying me forced you into being tutored and being nice to me."

"Deal."

Kurt looked David in the eyes. "So, back to the locker room and being honest."

"Um."

"Honesty?"

"Okay."

"Why did you kiss me?"

"Honestly, I don't know."

"Do you like me?"

David looked way and blushed somewhat, while trying to not smile.

"So you do..."

"I don't want to. No - that sounds mean and it's not like that. I don't want to like any guys. I want to be straight. I want my mom to still love me."

"I can understand that, but not thinking about that aspect of it, do you actually like me?"

"You asked for honesty. So, yeah. I do."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah. Meaning it's okay to like me. At least I hope it's okay for someone to like me. I've always hoped that some day someone would like me."

David laughed. "You're really crazy, you know."

"Well, I prefer the term 'fabulous.'"

"Of course you do."

Kurt laughed.

They both just sat there for a few minutes.

Suddenly, Kurt got up and moved to sit next to David. "So, you like me. And you were my first crush."

"You were mine too."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"So, that locker room kiss wasn't really what I had in mind for my first kiss with a boy."

"Not really mine either. I mean I've thought about kissing you, but not like that."

"So, let's try it again. I'm game if you are."

David moved closer.

Kurt leaned in.

Their lips met tentatively.

They both pulled back.

"So?"

"So, what?"

"Do you like kissing me?"

"Well, yeah."

Kurt leaned in again. This time the kiss was less hesitant and lasted longer.

Kurt said, "You know, I think I quite like this."

"Me too."

They resumed kissing, just chaste kisses, but less hesitant.

"So, maybe liking boys might not be as bad as you think?"

"Maybe not."

David laughed and Kurt kissed him again.

They pulled apart and leaned back against the couch.

Kurt looked around. The room was pretty bare – just the sofa, two arm chairs, two end tables with only lamps on them, and an empty coffee table. There were no candles, flowers, photo frames, or knick-knacks of any sort – not even on the mantle of the fireplace. There was one poster-sized framed Monet print hanging over the couch.

"Does your mom live here?"

"No, they're separated."

"So, we could do French lessons here in the afternoons and no one would be around."

"Yeah."

"So, maybe we could start with French kissing?"

David laughed and kissed Kurt again.


End file.
